Le temps détruit tout
by Ditesco-Mori
Summary: Aya comes into terms with her past... and future.


_Los Angeles Times. _

_Septmeber 7, 2000. _

_ Following the tragic events that unfolded just three days ago in the Akropolis Tower, the authorities have reveled little details concerning the possible cause. However, high is the speculation of the massacre being carried about by a terrorist group, but there has been no confirmation from the Police Department. _

_ When questioned about the uncanny events that unfolded in the forsaken town of Dryfield, within the sands of the Mojave Desert, the words of Eric Baldwin, former Head of M.I.S.T (Mitochondria Investigation and Suppression Team) acknowledged no lives were wasted, and explained the delicate surface of the territory: "We have dedicated all of our efforts in locating the source of the explosion, and it is for certain the cause is directly linked to the highly volatile minerals that still resided within. There were some dynamite units in the old mine, which may have caused a chain reaction." No further has been explained on the matter. Regarding Eric Baldwin's unexpected and hasty resign to the head of the Special Team, little has been said, living everything to the resolution unfounded theories… _

The rest was illegible. The words were imprinted upon now amber paper, leaving haphazard spaces on the surface with no coloring, demonstrating the original tint the document once had had. Even though the paper, if extended, measured a considerable amount of space, just that note could be understand by human eyes.

She did not know the reason why she kept that paper. Decanted of flavor, and reason. Such marvelous façade the media could utilize in favor of someone, or perhaps the masquerade some people could easily don and discard was expressed in those tousling paragraphs, the remembrance of what happened just one year ago. Crimson scars were still embedded upon the skin, just like a murderous reminder. And she wondered once more… subsequent to the New York tragedy, no documents had she cared to archive. Just a wistful smile, painful gestures out of place and futile explanations were the sad requiem that marked the beginning and the end of what she thought as a new life.

Every ray of afternoon sun permeated from among the crystals of the car. The heat intruded the privacy as well, rising the temperature of the reduced space. For a good long time, eyes deserted reality in order to submerge into the weaving of words plastered on the crumbled, aged paper. A lost gaze, errant in the sea of black, yellow and scarce white made, almost turning the mixture into a vertigo. Even the focus had been lost, understanding what perfect alien eyes could neatly read, as monochrome stripes. There was an ethereal silence within, even though ears, if the attempt was performed, could hear the outside activity of the wind trekking across the idiosyncratic fauna of the desert, hauling dried fauna across the wasteland.

They had parked the car several minutes ago, putting an end to a silent drive where only lexis was shared whenever it had been extremely necessary. And even though the three of them were no strangers, for that shard of time, those hours in which he had taken the steer wheel of the only car he had managed to buy in his life, they felt more distant and foreign than ever. The girl slept on the back seat, her frame positioned horizontally, making smart use of all the space she had. Looking through the window had soon turned a flavorless activity, specially when the scenery is the constant auburn hue below, azure above. 

The man, still with five digits upon the wheel of the car with an askance glance turned to the companion at his right. The companion, a young woman of dubious age. Slim bone complexion, unmarred tissue... twenty-five years top, once could speculate. She was reading an old newspaper, and it had been impossible for him to discern the subject or news it held. Eyes cagily moved to the back before setting in the front once more. The resemblance was left for common knowledge to bind the easiest explanation with logic. Mother and daughter. Or perhaps a sibling relationship. Yet, none of those corresponded to the answer biology succeded in explaning through a complex weaving of theories and practices where moral was not encrypted. 

"You don't have to do this." His voice was the blade that shattered the pronunced silence, every word seeming eternal.

For a moment, the gaze of the woman loittered upon the paper, until it languidly glided to the front, looking at the debris of her memories manifested in the physical plane. She did not answer to his sentence, but instead kept her gaze in the front, partially hurt by the uncomfortable flow of light that entered by the front pane, concentrating in one place in order to descend straight in her vision. The grasp of the document shuffled, while she finally left it to a side.

His reaction to her silence was collected, limiting his actions to the subtle movement of russet brows into a frown, liberating his fingers from the tension of the wheel they still had some control over. Wearing a raven, polyester sweater had not been the smartest idea, now he noted, not truly musing about the heat. Tarnished by the recoil of his own system in attempts of lowering his temperature, the pronunced jaw of the man, missing of a lingering and trademark molding of lips inspired by wit, glistened with the sun and sweat. The mine did not harbor good memories for him, either. And just like her, he bore severe flesh wounds. At least thirty stitches had been swen upon the injured leg, that, and a year of non-stopping action where impersonations had served as a haven, hounding dubious intelligence. But he knew it was not the same for her, or for the girl on the back. His admiration towards the two females derivated from that fact, and the forte and moral fiber they both harnessed.

She just glanced at him, inwardly fixing the representation of bliss. A pillar, some would think. Even though he had not been with them the last year. His entrance back to her life preluded by uncertainty. To wake up every single day, expecting a random call from a random locale, summoning to the recognition of a corpse. To have a dream molded from a memory manifest itself back into your life. The missing nocturnal scent by a side, a mixture of cologne and sweat penetrating the fabrics of the pillows and covers. A heaving back to reality, the closure of the abyss. Deciding to halt the musing, she looked at him for the play of a pair of seconds, and exited the car not before telling him to keep an eye on the girl, and manipulate a lie if she was to wake up. Returning to the place where Ark had been was something the youth did not need. It was enough that she brough him along...

The heat outside was much more unbearable than inside the car. Just as the plastic soles of her two raven boots moved to the ground, unsettled grime and sand rebuked with a submissive compression. Smudged to the face were the tawny-tinted bangs, along with a small line of hair that cupped the cheeks, framing all of her visage. The tips of the hair met by the end of the jaw. Before moving forward, she cleaned the sweat off her palms upon the fabrics of a pair of vintage jeans. And above, completing the attire the idiosyncratic white cotton t-shirt she mostly wore.

The ruins spread before her. A monticule of materials forming an amorphous silhouette that protruded from unfathomable depths. Long bars of what she thought to be iron elongated vertically, rooting from the chaos and reaching to the sky. The rest nestled from the bars: a consuming negritude, the lingering mine resources scattered all over. With the exception of the are corseting the bars, in the distance, she discerned a void, an unplumbed abyss. And every step she took was loaded with memories. A work of reminiscing of acerbic taste, a taciturn grief slowly moving back to her mouth, expelled from her stomach as a revolting sensation and tailing behind a nauseating taste. People said she would be fine. The circumstantial characters tried to assure her she was alright, and that fear would vanish. And yet, they did not know. The fright had nurtured in her dreams, bonding with her id in order to play cynical games in the realm where she found herself the most defenseless. Every night, every sleep decanted night…

Her strides halted feet before the maelstrom, proving that what she had previously scrutinized as an abyss was meekly the blotched, scared floor of the explosion. The proximity to the chaos rose her senses, flaring nostrils with the blazed scent of diverse materials which had gone combusting procedures. It was like a thick mantle that lingered in the air which seduced forward the previously formulated repulsion in her stomach. Move one step forward. Stop. Listen. Silence. A crow afar took flight, creaking a cry in his fly.

And so, it began. Errant gaze upon the chaos, stationary. The monologue of forgiveness produced by grief and despair, sketched one fateful night full of significance. Whislt many worshiped and celebrated the coming, the advent of an almighty being that herded many, to conclude a virtuous life with a sacrifice. And that night, the antithesis had been breeded, seeking doom on what the former had attempeted to save.

Yet, she was no God or deity, and neither had been the remnants of organical and inorganical particles that remained woven to the rests of the chaos. Was she sorry? A shard of emotion emulated that feeling. Was she angered? Another shard made sure to weight her heart with the emotion. There was such a thin relationship with those two... Sorry and angered for the cynical circumstances that had driven them to the sucession of events where she slaughtered her kindred. _'Man is evil'-so said to me for consolation, all the wisest ones. Alas, if only it were still true today. For evil is man's best strength. 'Man must become better and more evil,' so do I teach. The worst evil is necessary for the Übermensch's best. _Her lips parted gradually, trying to say something but the actions was halted half way through. Anxiety had reached to her, tensing her fingers within the protection of the pockets from the jeans. 

_They said I would heal. Time was the medicine for not only unrequitted love, but for heart aches as well. ... Le temps détruit tout. Humans are very selfish entities... after all, we solely strive for survival, no? When you asked me why was I siding with humans, I answered the only thing I could: 'Why not? After all, I am human.' However... that is the only thing I could think of in that moment. The only explanation of my struggle. Now..._

She made a pause and looked over her shoulder to the car. Once her gaze had fallen upon the destroyed facility again, she lowered, placing her weight on her ankles. 

_Eve and you are so much alike. It is amazing. She is... this untainted individual, amazed at the most simple things. Recently... she has developed a desire for Astrology and Ciences, over all. Also... her powers have slowly disappeared._

_Indeed. They say Time Destroys All. Yet, sometimes the remains of memories we cannot, or just will not, let go of are the simple foundations for us to start anew, weaving a new life we can finally call ours under the past we learn from. It is futile to remain clung to ethereal subjects, grieving and questioning our behaviors... I repent of many thing I have done, but I realize it is all part of our ultimate course. What we do will be eventually rewarded or punished, and whatever it is... it will ultimately affect us. I wish some thing had not happened, I wish you, Mom and Dad were still here... but..._

The wind howled, like a prowling animal nearing a victim. The landscape had change, moving from an incandesent view to the solemn fusion of raven, and diminutive dots of white sourcing from all over the negritude. When she neared the car, the man was still within the driver's seat, though his hand were now free of interaction with the wheel. Impassive to the action from the cabin, the girl rested with even inhalations, altering her position every now and then. The blonde adult adjusted her frame in the seat, fastening the old seat belt. When metal clicked in order to alert the procedure had been fullfilled, the man turned to look at her once more. What her mouth failed to convey, green irises explained, and the ghostly movement of lips arching into a true, earnest smile, the first he had come to witness. 


End file.
